


penpals

by Jydaria



Series: snapshots [3]
Category: SPY x FAMILY (Manga)
Genre: Anya deserves so much Happiness and Friends and Family and Love, Attempt at Humor, Family Fluff, Gen, Humor, slight crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jydaria/pseuds/Jydaria
Summary: Operation Best Buddies was up in the air. Although she had easily interested Becky in her dog and was almost on visiting-each-other’s-homes basis with her, half as much couldn’t even be said for with Damian. She needed another test subject, for lack of a better word. She thought she had just the perfect one.
Relationships: Anya Forger & Happiness, Anya Forger & Loid Forger | Twilight & Yor Briar Forger | Thorn Princess
Series: snapshots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827979
Comments: 9
Kudos: 57





	penpals

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know anything about children. While I am of the camp that Anya’s like 4-5 like Loid estimated, it doesn’t make much of a perspective difference than if I assumed she were 6. Still difficult, and this WIP was sitting in my folder long enough that I just decided I wouldn’t get anything else written for it anyway. (A l s o Anya realizes Loid’s a tsundere but doesn’t realize Damian’s a tsundere, pfft)

“Pa, can I have a mess-in-ger pigeon?” she asked in her most sophisticated voice she could, carefully articulating and speaking politely and quietly. 

“Only if one’s for sale.” Loid replied automatically, and she tried to separate his speech from the barrage of thoughts  _ why-training-how-obtaining-time-recovering-price-lifespan-following me to work-hiding-protecting _ he went through so quickly. He thought as much as a few people combined. She’d know. 

Yor’s thoughts betrayed her from sneaking up on Anya, but it was all in jest anyway. “If I carry you like this, you can be the messenger pigeon!” Anya giggled as Yor carried her across the living room before putting her down. “What do you want one for?”

“Because—!”  _ I need to have many backup plans like you, Pa, to ensure Operation Best Buddies succeeds if I can’t get 8 stella stars.  _ “I want to have a penpal.” 

Operation Best Buddies was up in the air. Although she had easily interested Becky in her dog and was almost on visiting-each-other’s-homes basis with her, half as much couldn’t even be said for with Damian. She needed another test subject, for lack of a better word. She thought she had just the perfect one. 

“Do you have someone willing to be your penpal?”  _ If I ask Frankie I can screen all the children...but then children are predictably unpredictable, just like how that Blackwell girl keeps interfering with Operation Best Buddies.  _ Loid looked up from his newspaper, finished with whatever “cipher” he was doing with it. 

She scrunched her face. “Well, I was gonna—”

“Going to.” Loid corrected lightly. 

“I was going to ask that boy from the pool. He was nice.” The only nice boy her age she’s ever met. All the other boys in her class were either wary of her or mean to her. That meant they avoided her— _ can’t be seen talking to the girl who got a tonitrus on orientation day— _ or said unpleasant things, out loud or no— _ this girl thinks she’s all that just because she was the first to get a stella. _ And Damian, the only boy in her class outside this spectrum but not really in a good way, wasn’t getting along with her. So. Hence her new plan. 

Loid had a mild mannered look on his face while he heavily redacted his thoughts, “accidentally” out loud. “Well, it wouldn’t be hard to call them, and I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to ask.” She tried to not be crashed into by his flood of thoughts of  _ “thank god I already did background checks” _ and  _ “maybe it’ll improve her handwriting.” _

“He was nice! I’m sure he’d love to be your friend,” and Anya was afraid to hear what Yor had to say about it internally, given the unique things she’s heard and seen from Yor’s interesting imagination. 

_ "It's a school built around tradition. There’s a wall between old blood and the rest. The students get involved in discrimination and bullying, looking down on scholarship students, and then there’s boarders vs commuters." the seamstress was recounting with that serious look on her face. It then cut to Yor shaking multiple faceless first graders, asking them harriedly who was bullying her Anya, ‘she just wanted to know, nothing else.’ She was wearing her hitman dress, though.  _

As Anya stared at her mother figure, wide-eyed and blank, Loid had already come to a decision on some matter and was heading for the phone. “—eon so you’ll have to write letters and mail them. It’ll be good for you to learn a bit about mail, I suppose, but it won’t be too often, maybe once or twice a week?” 

And so, Anya successfully obtained a penpal and learned the difference between “Ken” and “kin” (probably only for a few hours, tops). What was the Operation name for this, since it was still technically under Operation Best Buddies? Operation Becoming Buddies?

* * *

As it turned out, Ken did have nice handwriting. He didn’t comment on hers, though. 

Ken also was a few years older than her, and told her that she shouldn’t waste her time trying to be nice to people who said she had a weird hairstyle, stubby legs, eyes the color of ditchwater, and bad breath because they were all very wrong (he spent a very long letter trying to convince her. They had only met once, beyond the first, if that even counted. Still, she wanted to believe him more than she did Damian—so where had she gone wrong with him?) 

She was telling Becky about her new penpal during lunch when Becky demanded, “I was wondering this when that thing with George happened, are you just trying to go after any guy?!” 

“Yeah, any guy is fine.” Anya intoned while exiling the carrots from her tray. 

_ I don’t care, she can do whatever she wants, it suits that commoner just fine anyway! This feeling is just shock!  _ She looked up and noticed Damian staring at her, doing his best impression of a kettle about to boil over. 

“Pa says you have to know everything about your target first, so I’m trying to learn more about Sy-on boy by studying other boys first,” she decided to amend to see if that would prevent Damian from blowing up. Ken had said being honest about your intentions and impressions of someone was a good way to start improving a relationship. 

There was a blessedly silent beat, where everyone for some reason was devoid of any thoughts whatsoever, before it became chaos. 

  
_ “Pa’s a liar, too.” _ Anya thought with a blank look on her face as Becky shook her by the shoulders yelling  _ “Target?!” _ and Sy-on boy and his two friends were busy yelling something over her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Anya deserves all the friends and love. Listen, even by the Loid’s and Yor’s date she’s still scared they’ll casually abandon her. Child, no. 
> 
> Also. We know nothing about Ken so I took some liberties (even though I’m not feeling very creative rn) buuuuut just a fun concept I guess. Sign me up for those “they saved my life” plots anytime. Was going to include snippets of exchanged letters but it didn’t happen (unless I feel inspired one day)


End file.
